i think you are refering to the "snowball earth" which was 2 billion years before "The Great Dying", where algae removed CO2 and returned o2 back into the atmosphere. o2 is a poor greenhouse gas.

it is still a mystery - we have no knowledge of the primorial makeup of Earth's Atmosphere (which had no o2 in it) - it is assumed that it had enough co2 to compensate for a far weaker sun (2/3's that of today's sun) -enough to allow for liquid water (maybe the mantle had enough heat from Earth's formation and the twice the amount of radioactive metals in the mantle to help keep the earth warm in spite of the weak sun).

the latter was due to the Deccan Traps - indian ocean area of "hot mantle" that spewed CO2 into the atmosphere for millions of years via volcanoes.

gaf, yes, it was a different world then with different conditions, prone to ice ages

the main relevantly transformative effect of the blue-green algae to humanity and other complex life was not CO² levels but oxygen, which was produced by those first photosynthesisers. Oxygen was toxic to almost all existing organisms, thus 90% of them died out in the Permian extinction event. Yet the oxygen made complex multicellular life possible.

Basically, the biosphere restructured itself - it underwent metamorphosis. It is doing it again today. At this stage it appears most likely that the future of the Earth's surface in following centuries will have many fewer large and complex organisms but many more intelligent machines and cyborgs.

with respect I think you are confused here. the increacing o2 levels via BG algae created the "snowball earth" `1-2 billion yrs prior to the "great dying" which was much later and was used to be thought of via a comet/asteroid/supper nova...............and today viewed as due to the deccan traps (volcanoes)./

I'm not one to jump to conclusions - esp since so far "We really don't know" which of the above was the cause of the "great dying".

--------but IMO if you think that the "great dying" was due to BG algae pumpig o2 into the atmos - your conclusion is wrong.

the great dying was much later - when amimals lived - all animals need o2 to live. so o2 is not relivent to their "Dying" per this particular.................not to mention said dying was much later than snowball earth era.

2-cents.

It's clear that sometimes species shape the Earth at times. It's now humans.

The blue-green algae definitely played a role in The Great Dying - there is no room for doubt, even if there were other factors. There was no free oxygen in the atmosphere until photosyntheisers emerged. That's how the atmosphere came to be oxygenated. Methanogenic organisms cannot tolerate oxygen so it's logical that most would have died out.

If you look at the actual evidence, when we mathematically remove factors like the effects from an el nino, the relationship between greenhouse gas emissions and rising temperatures is nearly linear.

Isn't there a lag between temperature rise and co2 increase? Temperature precedes the co2 rise. As the earth warms due to solar and cosmic activity, animal life flourishes and emits co2. The warm periods in history coincide with major human accomplishments, further substantiating the theory.

So, it's really hard to imagine that there is some other factor that is mainly responsible for the temperature rising, which just so happens to correspond to a nearly linear relationship between greenhouse gas emissions and temperature increases. The likelihood of that occurring is something like 0.

The coincidence is explained above, but what's unlikely is that something which constitutes .04% of the atmosphere could have a meaningful effect in light of the magnitude of the sun and galaxy.

The science behind climate change is actually fairly straightforward in its basics, and no science-denier has yet been able to refute a single aspect of it.

The Climate Change Challenge: I hereby agree to give $10,000 (ten thousand dollars) of my children’s inheritance to the first person or team of people who can demonstrate through direct measurements in the laboratory and/or in the field that a 15% increase in carbon dioxide, such as that observed from 1970 to 1998, can actually cause more warming of Earth than caused by observed contemporaneous depletion of the ozone layer of up to 60%.https://whyclimatechanges.com/challenge/

Whatever co2 does is negligible at .04% atm concentration and re-radiated IR is 1/48th the energy of inbound UV. If you really dive into the physics behind it, you'd quickly see it's nonsense.

Solar cycles and positioning in the galactic arms along with axial precession of the earth are the main climate drivers, not some insignificant gas at insignificant concentrations.

How do you know that? Can you explain to me the mechanism by which co2 insulates the earth? (hint: there is no such thing as reflection of EM waves)

I'm not saying you haven't, but if you haven't educated yourself on the precise mechanisms involved, then how can you be authority to judge truth? The vast majority of people have no justification to have an opinion on this subject.

On another note, it's also interesting how the last Snowball Earth, the Cryogenian seems to have set the stage for the Cambrian explosion.

dont know about this.

would love to know more about if you are will Alta.

I don't know about it either, would be interesting to learn the connections. But the oxygen levels after the Cryogenian seem to have suddenly skyrocketed, life suddenly diversified and 100 million years later this all seems to have concluded in the Cambrian explosion.

I just get the general impression that the Cryogenian (whether the entire planet was covered in ice, or there was an ice-free band at the Equator, is debated) seems to have held back things for a 100 million years, so that in the next 100 million years, life could explode. (Or maybe I'm just seeing a connection that isn't there.)

It's clear that sometimes species shape the Earth at times. It's now humans.

The blue-green algae definitely played a role in The Great Dying - there is no room for doubt, even if there were other factors. There was no free oxygen in the atmosphere until photosyntheisers emerged. That's how the atmosphere came to be oxygenated. Methanogenic organisms cannot tolerate oxygen so it's logical that most would have died out.

Again, they are totally unrelated.
The Oxygen Catastrophe happened ~2450 million years ago.
The Permian Great Dying happened ~252 million years ago.

It's clear that sometimes species shape the Earth at times. It's now humans.

The blue-green algae definitely played a role in The Great Dying - there is no room for doubt, even if there were other factors. There was no free oxygen in the atmosphere until photosyntheisers emerged. That's how the atmosphere came to be oxygenated. Methanogenic organisms cannot tolerate oxygen so it's logical that most would have died out.

Again, they are totally unrelated.
The Oxygen Catastrophe happened ~2450 million years ago.
The Permian Great Dying happened ~252 million years ago.

Yes, thanks, I used the wrong term - it was the Great Oxygenation Event when organisms triggered extinctions and transformed the Earth. The Permian was perhaps caused by vulcanism or maybe an asteroid impact, perhaps multi-causal, with perhaps even a contribution by methanogenic microbes.

It's clear that sometimes species shape the Earth at times. It's now humans.

The blue-green algae definitely played a role in The Great Dying - there is no room for doubt, even if there were other factors. There was no free oxygen in the atmosphere until photosyntheisers emerged. That's how the atmosphere came to be oxygenated. Methanogenic organisms cannot tolerate oxygen so it's logical that most would have died out.

Again, they are totally unrelated.
The Oxygen Catastrophe happened ~2450 million years ago.
The Permian Great Dying happened ~252 million years ago.

back in the dark ages (1960s - lol) it was thought a comet, then later maybe a supernove, then today we blame the Dekken traps (Indian ocean volcanoes).......when we "don't know" we like to make it up.

I'm ok with "not knowing" which - it was a long time ago and there will not be a geological record.

ok by me. but if you have to blame something, i assume Dekkans is a goood as a space snowball or rock.

How about Theia impact? That was about 80 times wider and maybe over a billion years older than Biggen, and you don't need a satellite (or even to take a road trip) to see the mark it left behind. This Theia hypothesis is not fully accepted, but I see nothing competing except a very young Earth rotating too quickly for stability.
Of course 80x the diameter puts it in a league beyond the classification of 'asteroid'. The largest known current asteroid is Ceres, less than a sixth the diameter of what Theia probably was.

I have a healthy respect for at least some life to survive nasty events, but I don't think any life could have survived that one. Life appeared after that event.